ACCEPTANCE AND ADPOTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS: MODERATING EFFECTS OF GENDER DOI: 10.5585/RAI.2010532

Abstract

Innovative product adoption is a challenge for both organizations and marketing professionals. In order to identify gender differences related to the acceptance and adoption of new technologies in products, a survey sample of 212 university students was performed. The applied model was a combination of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), with five antecedents constructs (expressiveness, enjoyment, usefulness, ease of use, normative pressure) and two dependents constructs (attitude towards use and intention to use). Data was examined via exploratory factor analysis (KMO = 0.863; alphas between 0.722-0.838) and confirmatory factor analysis (RMSE = 0.058, ?²/gl = 1.66, NFI = 0.817 e NNFI = 0.903), each model having demonstrated to be a good fit. Structural models for male and female indicate that: attitude has a higher influence on intention for males; expressiveness has a higher influence on intention to use for women; usefulness has no effect on intention; the effect of ease of use and intention was stronger with women; and normative pressure does not affect intention to use. Such findings suggest that innovative strategies for female users should focus on ease of use and enjoyment, whereas for men, no significant correlations were made, indicating that further studies should be conducted.